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Winners

After tumbling hard through the first half of 2010, sugar prices have dramatically reversed their trajectory, pushing SGG to levels last seen in March.

Although its ascension has been dramatic, the longer term outlook for sugar is far from sweet. This week, Brazil's Agriculture Ministry announced that they expect the price of the crop to fall over the next two years.

Investors looking for a more reliable way to play agriculture futures contracts should look to
PowerShares DB Agriculture(DBA). This fund tracks a diverse basket of contracts which include wheat, corn, sugar and livestock. This week, DBA gained 3.3%.

Natural gas prices witnessed a nice jump this week as well thanks to an optimistic storage report from the Energy Information Administration. The best way for investors to play the natural gas industry is to skip UNG and opt for the equity backed
First Trust ISE-Revere Natural Gas Index ETF(FCG).

The fund has recently gone through an interesting transformation which has left it heavily exposed to a number of integrated oil majors such as
Exxon Mobil(XOM),
Total(TOT) and
Royal Dutch Shell(RDS.A). This week, a number of these firms reported stellar earnings.

A number of European Union-focused ETFs were leaders among this week's list of winners as fears regarding the region's debt issues were abated. Topping the list was EWO, which is designed to track the Austrian market.

In the midst of the debt crisis, Austria was singled out as being particularly vulnerable to tension due to its heavy exposure to Eastern European debt.

The industry linked platinum group of metals scored strong gains this week, led by palladium. The strength, however, did not extend to all members of the precious metals industry. Gold prices tumbled as investors shied away from protection in favor of more risky assets. In response, the
Market Vectors Gold Miners ETF(GDX) suffered one of the sharpest drops of all ETFs this week.

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